Before long, the steam car brakes squealed, and they arrived at their destination. The steam car stopped by a roadside paved with broken stone slabs.
Compared with the prosperity of Downing Street, ordinary residential districts like Tailor Street better reflected the true living standards of Sinless City's residents.
The streets were extremely narrow, filthy water flowed across the stone roads, heaps of garbage could be seen throughout the alleys, and the air often reeked of excrement and urine.
This was one of Sinless City's most densely populated districts, as well as one of its poorest.
Ji Xun's group of five carried their cases through an alley for a while before finding the inconspicuous "17 Tailor Street."
When they arrived, two stern-looking men were already waiting at the door to handle the scene.
Expensive suits, polished leather shoes, and gear that looked equally high-end. They were Field Agents from Golden Oak Security Company, specializing in emergencies such as extraordinary incidents and disaster containment within the city.
Corpse Collectors, meanwhile, were merely temporary employees of the company.
Sinless City had no public security department. Maintaining order relied mainly on the violent methods of several major gangs, while everything else was outsourced to Golden Oak Security Company.
Ji Xun had only been employed for three days and had yet to make sense of the city's tangled web of factions.
But he had heard that Golden Oak Security Company's boss was extremely influential and well-connected in Sinless City. Not only did the major gangs show him respect, various merchant associations also paid protection money, and he even had some ties to the Governor's Mansion.
Dong Jiu seemed to know the two men in suits. The moment he approached, the bearded man pointed at the door and said, "Dong Jiu, the bodies inside are yours to handle. No need to preserve them. There are two upstairs and sixteen in the cellar. Clean up carefully."
Dong Jiu smiled. "Got it."
Without wasting words, he called to the four people behind him, "Get to work."
Ji Xun and the other three put on their Gas Masks and gloves, then rushed into the house.
What Ji Xun and the others did not know was that after they entered the house, the two Field Agents from the company began talking at the door.
The bearded man said, "Judging by those evil symbols, the cellar should have been a secret altar of the Silver Moon Cult. Only those Old Ones Remnants who lurk in the shadows would make something so disgusting."
"Yeah."
The pale-faced man also looked disgusted. "Those corpses are utterly revolting, and the pollution is severe. Let the company's Corpse Collectors deal with them. Once they're done, erase their memories as usual."
The bearded man said nothing at first, then added, "The Dark Power from the corpses is spreading rapidly, and there are obvious bite marks. The one who killed them to silence them was probably 'Lone Wolf' Baron. I never expected him to lose control and betray us. He used to be a colleague in Team Eight. But then again, that Cataclysmic Object he brought back from Demon Cross is troublesome too. He also fused with that sinister Profession Card. Several Field Agents involved in his capture have already died. The company higher-ups must be having a headache right now."
The pale-faced man shrugged. "Who cares? We're not the ones responsible for capturing him. Just write it in the report."
The bearded man raised his brows. "True."
The moment Ji Xun's group entered the house, they could smell a faint scent of blood even through their Gas Masks.
There were two corpses in the room. One had its entire left shoulder torn away as though bitten off by a wild beast, while the other had a massive hole punched through his chest.
It was a particularly brutal murder scene.
Yet when Ji Xun looked at the corpses, he inexplicably found them familiar.
Over the past few days, the bodies they normally collected had gunshot wounds, blade wounds, or spell wounds. Few had been beaten to death with fists.
Much less had their chests blasted apart by a single punch.
Anyone could imagine that the killer had been an exceptionally strong man.
And coincidentally, Ji Xun had indeed met one.
The wanted criminal whose Curse Power had gone out of control on the train back to Sinless City.
Before he could think further, Captain Dong Jiu ordered, "You and you. The two of you handle the corpses in the cellar."
The ones called out were naturally Ji Xun and the chubby newcomer, Gibb.
At that, the other two veteran team members watched with cold, unconcerned smiles.
Everyone knew that handling corpses came with pollution risks. For the same pay, the fewer bodies they had to touch, the better.
Dong Jiu and the other two had already formed their own little clique.
Exploiting newcomers seemed to be part of the Corpse Collectors' workplace culture.
It had been like this for the past few days, and Ji Xun did not mind.
More contact with corpses was exactly what he wanted.
If he had a choice, he would have preferred the clients in the cellar to have been extraordinary individuals while alive. Official Spell Card Masters would have been best—the more Extraordinary Traits they retained, the better.
And judging by the dense, uncontrolled Curse Power leaking from these corpses, they really were.
Although the chubby Gibb was reluctant, he dared not voice his anger.
The two carried their toolboxes and silently descended the stairs into the cellar.
But the moment they opened the cellar door, a nauseating warm stench of blood rushed into their faces.
Even Ji Xun frowned at the sight.
He had already felt something was wrong after seeing the two bodies upstairs. Now, looking at the scene in the cellar, how could he not realize that it was more than merely wrong? The problem was enormous.
In the pitch-black cellar, several corpses could vaguely be seen hanging in the air.
Merely seeing those shadows gave people a bizarre and nauseating psychological shock.
They had barely taken two steps down the stairs when the Revelation prompt appeared.
"You resisted an unknown Mental Pollution assault."
Ordinary corpses would not cause Mental Pollution.
Ji Xun had resisted it, but Gibb's facial expression beside him turned as bitter as a melon.
This level of pollution was far stronger than that from the previous bodies.
Ji Xun could not help but grow suspicious. What was going on?
This mission seemed to have brought him into contact with some of Sinless City's secrets.
But this was the work of Corpse Collectors.
The two could only carry their lamps and continue downward.
Ji Xun's night vision was excellent. Even without the lamp, he could see that the cellar appeared to be an evil altar.
One, two, three... There were sixteen hanging shadows in total.
That meant sixteen corpses.
The bodies were arranged around the cellar in a peculiar formation, suspended in midair by iron hooks.
All the corpses had been skinned. Crimson muscle fibers, yellow layers of fat, and blood vessels were clearly visible. Judging from the details, the skinner was highly skilled, as though extremely proficient in human anatomy.
Ji Xun did not think this was the work of some deranged serial killer.
Then he looked again.
There were also special incantation symbols painted on the walls in blood. One of them was particularly conspicuous. It looked like this: .
A moon?
Such symbols usually pointed toward certain entities in mysticism.
Ji Xun examined the bodies. They were very fresh, and had been dead for less than an hour.
In other words, all these people had still been alive shortly before they arrived.
It looked like they had been silenced in a hurry.
"What was this?"
The more carefully Ji Xun looked, the tighter his brows knitted. Mysterious symbols, rituals, sacrifices.
And it had all happened in an inconspicuous civilian district like Tailor Street.
He immediately realized that this was no simple mission.
These were high-level incidents beyond the reach of ordinary people.
The bodies were not merely bloody. More importantly, they emitted dense Curse Power Pollution like black flames.
But then he remembered that this was not a case a low-level Corpse Collector like him could investigate, so he did not dwell on it.
While Ji Xun observed the scene, Gibb had already opened his toolbox, revealing all kinds of bottled reagents. He sighed. "Let's get started. Sigh, so many clients. Who knows how long this will take."
Disgusting or not, the two of them still had to handle it.
The blue granules were Rock Salt Crystals, the green reagent was Corrosive Aqua Regia, the brown liquid was Lizard Acid, and the red powder was Blood Bone Powder.
These were all Alchemical Potions, with each different reagent designed to handle different types of corpses.
Golden Oak Security Company's Corpse Collector Training Manual described the effects of these reagents, and the learning threshold was not high.
On his first day at work, Ji Xun had read through the manual once and mastered this professional skill of a Corpse Collector.
Gibb had already opened a case and taken out a suspension reagent.
First, he used tweezers to pick up some tissue from a corpse on the ground and placed it into a test tube.
The moment the flesh came into contact with the reagent, a string of tiny bubbles rose. Then it immediately turned dark red.
Seeing the color of the reagent, Gibb had already reached a conclusion. He muttered, "The corpses retain fire-aspect Curse Power."
After seeing that, he took out a jar of water-aspect Rock Salt Crystals and sprinkled them over the corpses.
The sea salt made a faint sizzling sound upon touching the bodies.
This was a necessary procedure before collecting corpses.
After extraordinary individuals died, the energy in their bodies lost conscious control. Alchemical Potions had to be used to neutralize and guide away the residual Curse Power within the corpse. Otherwise, uncontrolled Curse Power was the most important cause of aberrations.
If the bodies were burned without treatment, it would be like burning opium. Those aberrant substances would spread through the air and endanger everyone in the city.
This was also why Sinless City had a position for Corpse Collectors.
Watching the chubby boy work seriously, Ji Xun said, "Handle the two by the entrance first. I'll deal with the ones over there."
"Mm."
Gibb kept his head down and focused on his work. The dizziness caused by the Mental Pollution after entering the cellar left him unable to say anything else.
Ji Xun said no more and walked farther in. As expected, the pollution was even more severe in the depths of the cellar.
He began taking down the hanging corpses and placing them into shrouds.
The body bags were also made from special materials that could isolate pollution to a certain extent. In the end, the corpses still had to be stored in lead-iron boxes in the morgue.
However, he did not handle them too meticulously. Corpses with such dense uncontrolled Extraordinary Traits were rare clients for Ji Xun.
After returning, he could clean off the Alchemical Potions from the bodies and continue using them.
Demon Feast devoured the uncontrolled energy around him, and he suffered no negative corrosion at all.
There were obvious signs that the cellar had been searched. Clearly, the two Field Agents had already come down to inspect it, taking away everything worth taking.
There was nothing else worth observing.
Everything proceeded according to standard corpse collection procedures.
Ji Xun had originally thought that cleaning up the sixteen corpses would be the end of it. But just as he was collecting the third corpse and reached the depths of the cellar, he suddenly saw Revelation.
"You heard Demonic Whispers from the abyss. Mental Confusion resisted. You touched an 'Old World Divine Miracle.'"
Before you continue